The Year of the Wrecking Ball 😱💩✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️💩😱

👀 👀😱: Another day with too much devious crazy to detail including one bigly diversion intended to distract attention from the wrecking ball crashing into our democratic institutions and freedoms. Let’s be clear, the US is not going to take over ownership of Gaza and Trump Gaza Resort on the Mediterranean is not going to happen. Sure, Trump is getting a lot of headlines for the statement he made last night, the one where he said that he’s sending the US military to occupy Gaza, evicting the 2 plus million Palestinians who live there and who no other country has any interest in “absorbing.”  He’s going to talk about that a lot, the gullible press, a crowd that should know better but has proven countless times that they don’t is already amplifying his assertion and running headlines, but as Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said last night, it’s a diversion, it’s not going to happen and even saying so is doing nothing to foster peace or bring more hostages home. Saudi Arabia has already weighed in with a loud no and just about every other country in the Middle East and elsewhere will follow suit, so let’s not get distracted from the bad things that are actually happening. President Elon and his puppet Trump are destroying America as we know it, following the Project 2025 playbook, dismantling key government departments and programs, and taking away rights. They’re shuttering US AID, they’re about to go after the Department of Education, appear to have taken control of the US Treasury’s payment system, they’re purging the FBI and are preparing to do the same to the CIA and are even about to take a sharpie to NOAA and the National Weather Service.  All that is on top of the withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate accords, two actions that expose all of us to more COVID-like pandemics, new AIDS strains, Ebola, Marburg, and emerging diseases we can’t even contemplate while also endangering the health of the planet.  Those are the issues to focus on, not Trump’s unhinged pipedream plans for Gaza. The good news is that the pushback is beginning, lots of lawsuits have been filed, and Democrats in Congress appear to be shaking off their post-election malaise, the bad news is that percolating through the courts takes time, judges can be unpredictable, and Republicans control all three arms of government.  Still, just despairing isn’t an option.  If you like me had pushed the pause button on political contributions, push the forward button now because we need to loosen our wallets, speak up and act, because that’s what it is going to take.  Playing ostrich and staying quiet is not an option. 

Confirmations 😱:  Sadly, Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr are both one step closer to being confirmed.  On a party line basis both received the votes they needed to move out of committee to a Senate floor vote.  Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who knows better but who is up for re-election in 2026 and fears being primaried, voted for nepo RFK despite earlier expressing serious reservations about his anti-vaxx positions and ignorance about all thing’s health. Maybe Cassidy who voted to impeach Trump over the January 6^th insurrection is getting a pass for that act of disloyalty or at the very least thinks that he’s getting one by supporting RFK but it’s so depressing that a 67-year-old Senator, especially one with a career to fall back on, is so desperate to hold on to his seat that he’s willing to sell out his constituents health.   Similarly, Maine’s Susan Collins was one of the Republicans who voted for Tulsi Gabbard.  Like Cassidy, the 72-year-old Collins is up for reelection in 2026 and fears being primaried.  Unlike Louisiana, Maine is a 50-50 state so Republicans would put Collin’s Republican seat at risk if they nominated a candidate to her right. She knows that, but maybe she feels that she used up a chit by voting against Pete Hegseth and maybe, just maybe she plans to vote against RFK on the Senate floor, a nice gesture but one that would only bear fruit if three other Republicans join her and, so far ,that appears unlikely.  The Senate voted to confirm election denier Pam Bondi, who is expected to continue with the FBI purge that has been started by Acting Attorney General/Trump personal lawyer Emil Bove.  Every Democrat but Pennsylvania’s eclectic John’s Fetterman voted against her.  Fetterman is turning into this Senate’s version of Joe Manchin/Kyrsten Sinema. It’s likely that had the FBI purges not begun, more Democrats would have voted for Bondi, not as many as voted for now Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the normie who we now know is anything but.  The USAID dissolution is taking place on Rubio’s watch since what’s left of USAID has been rolled into the State Department. Rubio has appointed Pete Marocco, who was seen on film participating in the January 6^th onslaught of the Capitol and who earned a reputation for being disruptive and difficult during the last Trump administration, to run USAID and to perform an internal review of all its programs to determine which if any of them should be continued. Just a reminder that USAID funds programs that feeds the starving, provides drugs key for disease control, and funds flood control programs.  Moreover, the food, drugs, and building parts are largely sourced from US contractors so ending USAID programs results not only in the firing of USAID employees, many of whom are Americans but also hurts US farmers and contractors.  Shuttering USAID programs also hampers the CIA because though no one likes to say it, except Musk who considers them all evil, some of its employees also have or had intelligence functions.  That’s one of the reasons that Russian TV and Russian leaders are so amped by Trump/Musk’s actions and also the reason that USAID leaders were so outraged when Musk’s minions gained access to their top-secret files.  Turning to Treasury Secretary Bessent, who was also supposed to be normie, he wants us all to believe that Musk’s minions’ access to the Treasury payment system is read only but that’s hard to believe since they keep boasting about writing new code and “streamlining.”  Just a reminder that the Treasury system in addition to facilitating and prioritizing government houses all of our Social Security Numbers, banking information, email addresses and more; the information that we’re always told to keep away from prying eyes.

More Stupidity and Insanity:  In the lawsuit they’ve filed, the about to be purged FBI Agents have told the Courts that they fear that Trump plans to release their names and personal information to the January 6^th thugs that he recently pardoned, many of whom have threatened to go after those at Justice and at the FBI who touched any of their prosecutions. Given how much Trump admires Putin, it’s fair to assume the FBI agents and US attorneys have every right to be concerned.  Because irony is long dead, Elon Musk is threatening to sue who ever it is who released the names of his marauding minions to Wired Magazine, that’s Musk whose been publicly targeting and naming government employees on his X site since the beginning of DOGE.  And remember those tariffs against Mexico and Canada, they’re now on hold for thirty days or longer, maybe because the stock markets weren’t happy.  Trump’s claim is that he personally got our neighbors to concede lots of stuff, spoiler alert, he didn’t. Canada’s Trudeau and Mexico’s Sheinbaum agreed to continue doing the things they previously promised President Biden that they would do.  By the way, though we all agree that fentanyl is dangerous, despite Trump’s claims, very, very little of it comes into the US through the Canadian border.  As to the additional tariffs that had been imposed on China, they’re on so expect an uptick in some prices.  Also, forget about getting your Temu, Shein, and even some packages from Amazon. In response to Trump’s orders the US Postal Service has put a hold on them, that’s a result of the elimination of custom exemptions that had applied to packages with contents worth less than $800.  The overwhelmed USPS doesn’t have the capability to do all the customs processing that will result from the need to subject so many more packages to customs examinations.  Wonder if those customs inspectors like so many flight controllers have been offered some of those likely illegal government buyouts to facilitate the downsizing that Trump/Elon keep boasting about?  And now for my favorite stupid news story.  Over the weekend, Trump, ordered the release of 2.2 billion gallons of water from some northern California reservoirs to get more water to southern California.  The problem with that is that none of that water has a path to southern California but what it can and do and did before the flow was stopped was flood valuable farmland while also cutting into the supply of water that will be available to farmers during what’s expected to be a particularly bad summer drought season. Water experts and the US Corp of Engineers knew the release was stupid and pointless, but they were overruled by Trump, who knows everything because of his uncle who was an MIT professor.  Just a reminder that he also controls the nuclear codes. Lastly, the deportations including to Guantánamo Bay have begun and it’s painful to watch.                         

#BringThemAllHomeNow